Plum Island Animal Disease Center, ARS, USDA, Greenport, New York, NY 11944, USA.
Department of Pathobiology and Population Medicine, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box 6100, Oxford, MS 39762, USA.
Viruses. 2022 Jul 30;14(8):1682. doi: 10.3390/v14081682.
African swine fever virus (ASFV) causes a lethal disease (ASF) in domestic pigs, African swine fever (ASF). ASF is currently producing a pandemic affecting pig production across Eurasia, leading to a shortage of food accessibility. ASFV is structurally complex, harboring a large genome encoding over 150 genes. One of them, EP296R, has been shown to encode for an endonuclease that is necessary for the efficient replication of the virus in swine macrophages, the natural ASFV target cell. Here, we report the development of a recombinant virus, ASFV-G-∆EP296R, harboring the deletion of the EP296R gene from the genome of the highly virulent field isolate ASFV Georgia 2010 (ASFV-G). The recombinant ASFV-G-∆EP296R replicates in primary swine macrophages with similar kinetics as the parental virus ASFV-G. Pigs experimentally infected by the intramuscular route with 10 HAD show a slightly protracted, although lethal, presentation of the disease when compared to that of animals inoculated with parental ASFV-G. Viremia titers in the ASFV-G-∆EP296R-infected animals closely followed the kinetics of presentation of clinical disease. Results presented here demonstrate that ASFV-G-∆EP296R is not essential for the processes of ASFV replication in swine macrophages, nor is it radically involved in the process of virus replication or disease production in domestic pigs.
非洲猪瘟病毒（ASFV）会导致家猪发生一种致命疾病（ASF），即非洲猪瘟（ASF）。ASF 目前正在引发一场大流行，影响欧亚大陆的养猪业，导致食物供应短缺。ASFV 结构复杂，其基因组编码超过 150 个基因。其中，EP296R 基因编码的一种核酸内切酶对于病毒在猪巨噬细胞（ASF 的天然靶细胞）中的有效复制是必需的。在这里，我们报告了一种重组病毒 ASFV-G-∆EP296R 的开发，该病毒从高致病性田间分离株 ASFV Georgia 2010（ASFV-G）的基因组中缺失了 EP296R 基因。重组 ASFV-G-∆EP296R 在原代猪巨噬细胞中的复制动力学与亲本病毒 ASFV-G 相似。与接种亲本 ASFV-G 的动物相比，经肌肉途径感染 10 HAD 的猪在感染后表现出略微延长但致命的疾病。感染 ASFV-G-∆EP296R 的动物的病毒血症滴度与临床疾病表现的动力学密切相关。这里呈现的结果表明，ASFV-G-∆EP296R 对于 ASFV 在猪巨噬细胞中的复制过程不是必需的，也没有参与病毒复制或家猪疾病产生的过程。
